25,000 Imported Italian Twinkle Lights

Ree is generally not that materialistic.  A few weeks ago we went browsing through the toy section at Walmart so she could point out what she wanted Santa to bring her.  Instead of greedily wanting everything in the store, my very practical daughter went through and made a list of things she didn't need.  "Don't need Play-Doh.  Got Play-Doh.  Don't need Strawberry Shortcake.  Got Strawberry Shortcake."  And so it went.  She figured that she already had one of everything, so who needed more?  I love her!

But a funny thing happened on Sunday night.  She finally showed some normal three-year-old greed.  It was warm, so we took the kids for a walk after dinner to look at Christmas lights in the neighborhood.  We got to one house that was just COVERED in lights.  And they were set to music.  The kids were all transfixed.  I'm fairly certain Leon never blinked from the moment he spied the house until the stroller turned a corner and he could no longer see them no matter how hard he strained his neck.

On Saturday afternoon Ree had helped me put two strands of lights in our bushes and on our garage.  It wasn't much, but she thought they were great until she saw this house.  Ree looked at the decorated house and thought it was the best thing EVER.  Our two little strands of Christmas lights were sad and pathetic in comparison.  She wanted our house to look JUST LIKE THIS HOUSE.  I gently explained that it took years to get that many Christmas lights (and an inflatable carousel), and that we couldn't just get them all at once.  She said, yes, we could get them all at once.  She added that we just needed to go to Target or Walmart.  And she wanted to go right then.

She truly wants so little, that it's hard to tell her no.  So perhaps this weekend she and I will go shopping for a few more Christmas lights.